Syracuse, N.Y. — A downtown bakery and café that opened with long lines and big expectations has closed permanently, its owner announced over the weekend.
Sugar Grove Cafe and Bakery, which opened in late 2024 at 401 S. Salina St., ended operations effective immediately, according to a Facebook post from owner Tonya Duffy, who said the decision was made “with a heavy heart.”
“I wanted to inform our loyal and valued customers that we are permanently shutting the doors,” Duffy wrote. “It’s time to close this chapter of our lives.”
While the café itself is closed, Duffy said the business’s wholesale baking operation will continue. Customers will still be able to find Sugar Grove pastries at partner cafés around Central New York.
Sugar Grove debuted downtown after Duffy rebranded and relocated her earlier business, The Toast, which previously operated in Canastota and later Cazenovia. The move came as staffing challenges and the closure of Cazenovia College reshaped the customer base there.
When Sugar Grove opened, customers lined South Salina Street during lunch hour. The space, next to the Galleries of Syracuse and the downtown library, was designed to seat about 70 people and included a large kitchen built for multiple bakers and cooks.
Food writer Lesley Porcelli raved about Sugar Grove’s bakery case in June, writing it was “popping, with the kinds of oversized, colorful pastries that look like they had emerged from a Richard Scarry storybook — cartoonish, whimsical, and winking at your inner child.”
The bakery and café offered breakfast, lunch and brunch, along with French pastries, sandwiches, coffee drinks and, later, beer, wine and mimosas.
The name Sugar Grove came from a small town in West Virginia where Duffy spent part of her childhood and learned to bake.
A former private investigator, she opened her first bakery in 2015 after encouragement from her daughter, Kylie Gunnip, and the two worked together for years, including traveling to Paris to study croissants and other French pastries.
At the time of the downtown opening, Duffy said the move to Syracuse felt like the right next step.
“I feel good about this place,” she said during Sugar Grove’s first week. “This is more than I ever expected.”
